2 Joker 2 Folly

It's out on VOD, so it would be rude not to.

Arthur Fleck is in jail because... did he get captured at the end of the last movie? I can't remember and I'm not watching it again. Anyway, his lawyer is going for the "insanity defense" because Joker is a different personality. Certainly this film has two personalities, where one is in a musical, and it is unrelated to the other movie. Unreliable narrators are always fun. Heck, for a while I wondered if Lee would turn out to be imaginary too. Arther Fleck goes to trial, not a lot happens, then Joker goes to trial. And then the movie finally ends, over two and a quarter hours later. You may have heard about the ending already, certainly there was a lot online about it at the time, but that might just be me.

The joke of this movie is definitely on the audience for sitting through this. Whatever he says, Todd Phillips clearly did want to make this movie, and say something. Other people have dissected that, but I put it to you that this doesn't say anything at all other than Todd Phillips made another movie. It just goes on and on and...

And yes, it's a musical. People complain about Joaquin Phoenix's signing, but... eh, it was fine to me. Seemed a bit rough in parts, but I'm no singer either. Nice to see Steve Coogan still in things, and even Ken Leung gets a cameo. Of course, there is Lady Gaga, and I have no idea if she did this because Todd asked nicely, it was a paycheck, or she actually thought there was something worthy of her attention in the script. I couldn't see it.

I'm not recommending this movie. Unless you like watching people smoke cigarettes, 'cos there's a damn lot of that.

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Murder by Bells

Sometimes you see a trailer and go "I have to see this!" Fortunately, youtube...

We start immediately with a women in a train station answering a phone, and death! Her previous lecturer is asked to be nosy. and looks into it, and there are a few deaths by phone and he is the One True Hero and works out that phones are to blame. He hooks up with an artist who works at the phone company while investigating, and harasses a cop to help, but...

Yes, we do get the point where just a ringing phone installs a sense of dread. Is this someone calling to pass on information, or is this a call to cause someone to pass on? Since this is 1982 phones are everywhere, and there's lots of wires, so this is very plausible. (Although, even back then, people's phone numbers are 555-something.)

Richard Chamberlain is our hero, and he does have a rather heroic beard. We also get fine performances from others, and some fine cameos too (hello Barry Morse!). The phone death effect is quite the thing, and I'm sure there's one or more stunt performer that got a good gig out of this considering how far some of the people got thrown.

An oldie.. but a goodie!

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Demos

In the recent Steam NextFest there were some demos for games I might like, so I tried them.

Hail to the Rainbow: Post apocalyptic game where you are Ignat and... I'm not really sure what is going on. This game is very Russian and as such is rather obtuse. Especially the controls. So much stuff I missed because I wasn't expecting the controls to be what they are. We get at least two bits, the first part I got past, the second part I didn't because I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

Wishlist? No.

The House of Tesla: From the makers of House of Da Vinci, a puzzle house. We get one room, and the demo had a bug or two, so that's not a promising start. But I played those other games, so sure as anything I'm gonna play this.

Wishlist? Yes.

no signal: There's a signal from a black hole, and something happened to the station. I think. There is a lot of Lore, but it is rather disjointed. We get a bit of stuff to do but... I hate the gameplay. It is free moving in all three dimensions and the controls are just uncomfortable to move around with.

Wishlist? No.

Take Notes: Something happened in the bunker, and we are investigating. Fairly direct puzzle game but... I had to brute force quite a few of the puzzles. It's possible that I missed the clues, but there were many I looked over for, but couldn't find anything. Rather on the basic side, but... okay?

Wishlist? Currently yes.

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M T Mon

Creepy-pasta does not a good film make.

An ex-cop looks into the missing young woman and... wait, let me stop you there. Whenever that happens in horror movies either the young woman is the Special One and ends up ending the person looking for them, or the person looking ends up the Special One. As this is called the empty MAN guess which one this is. Because I guessed before the end of the movie and remained unsurprised.

This was a comic book by BOOM! Studios, and was made back in 2017, but counts 2020 as the release year. Delaying a movie really indicates they have a hit on their hands and want to build hype or... no, wait, yeah, it was the other thing. No-one was interested and they finally let it out.

Pity, as this started well, with a group of young hikers and supernatural happens... but then they cut to J. Random White Guy and a cult and it all just falls apart, even though they sprinkle in "hit internet thing kids are doing that could be trouble". This had a few good ideas, but mired it down in a lot of tedium. I will check out the comic, and hope that was a lot better (although knowing comic adaptations as I do, it probably just has the same name and the concept of an "empty" man, and that's about it).

Featuring people that reminded me of other people. They were fine, but there are no actors that can make parts of that script believable, and it certainly wasn't.

I watched this on D+, and the best thing I can say about it is that it was better than the movie it recommended straight after (which I also watched), The Night House.

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ReBoot ReWind

As I mentioned when talking about the remastered episode, there is an associated ReBoot documentary, ReBoot Rewind.

The full series is now available, although the playlist is in a weird order.

Anyway, episode one for your viewing:

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The Superstance

This is as subtle as a car crash... which it has!

Elizabath Sparkle is an over aged, cursed husk of a woman (age 50) and the industry has no use for women over than this century, so she takes a "substance" that kicks out a sort of clone of her, but younger. Who is really popular. And doesn't want to put up with her older self. That can only go well.

As much as this isn't about women getting old, and we briefly see an old man, this is about women getting old and not being in Hollywood any more. As much as you want to say it isn't just woman, we get Dennis Quaid and Old Shareholders having a fine ole time. And we have plenty of evidence of older men still acting whereas always need the new female hotness.

Demi Moore is still a fine actress and so is Margaret Qualley as they both are the same person (more or less, they don't talk about how they don't really look that alike - indeed if they did it might cause more problems for the story than they want to address). The prothestics and other effects are blended in well, and help sell everything.

This is one of those good "black comedy"s, in that you can actually tell it is a black comedy. Worth a watch!

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Prints of Darkess

More John Carpenter? Don't mind if I do!

Science or Religion? When an old priest dies, he bequets the key to Donald Pleasence (who is just called Priest), and said Priest then gets in a scientist to study a large vat of green liquid. The scientist decides to get a whole slew of students in, and they practice good science like not actually observing the item of interest, and talking about things instead of looking. However, that does allow various people to get possessed, and soon Father shall be here.

This reminded me of The Stone Tapes, of science trying to tackle the supernatural and not being able to cope (I need to rewatch that). It is extremely watchable, slowly drawing you in, but then the idiocy of the students does make it not at all surprising that the Prince is winning.

Aside from Donald Pleasence, we have Victor Wong, and other actors who have not done anything to make me recognise them, and a cameo by Alice Cooper! The vat, and other, effects are hard core, done by playing film in reverse, and the main prosthetic is the skin one of the students ends up wearing. Simple, but good.

I'm gonna say a hot take here: John Carpenter made good movies!

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Arktik Konvoy

How about a Nordic version of Greyhound?

It's 1942, and the Allies are trying to get supplies to the Russians, via naval convoy. However, the British, who are providing cover, get word that a big German warship is coming, and decide to peace out leaving the convoy on its own. We follow one Nordic ship as they decide to continue their mission, although not with everyone on the same page. So much so we get drama from the captain and second officer having different plans and different chances to be in charge.

This movie brings you in. We are just following one ship, but we get the sense of how the entire fleet feels... until everything is broken up. As ever with good drama, you can agree with the different people's decisions and while some people are very definite in their opinions, it is hard to say anyone is particularly "right" or "wrong".

One unusual thing... there was a woman in the crew! Two amazing things, a) I couldn't imagine an US crew doing that, and b) no-one acted creepy towards her, she was just another character with her own things going on. Oh, such a world we can live in...

So enjoyable if you are looking for a good not-english drama movie.

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Mr. Croket

Yes, okay "What if Mr Rogers, But Evil?" but... quite watchable!

Mr. Crocket is a children's entertainer, in that he entertains children. And cares for them. Like, if you are in trouble, he will help you. So if your parents aren't good to you, he will sort them out. And then you can stay with him forever! But, of course, the parents themselves might have a different view of that.

This is about the hardship of being a parent, you try, but sometimes you are pushed too far.. and then the system immediately punishes you. For some parents, that might be better, but there are a lot of people just trying. So while we see Mr. Crocket take out someone who deserves it, of course we are following someone who does actually care about her child.

Of note, these are black actors, so... I'm not sure how much of this is a black story. I'm not qualified to talk about that aspect, but in the general sense of "it can be tough to be a parent" I can understand that.

In many ways this is quite low budget, but it fits the story it is telling. It doesn't feel like it needs to go big with effects for the story, but what we get works well.

It's things like that that makes me sometimes try sub 90-minute movies.

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Mouthy Madness

Spooky month, so classic horrors to catch up, although may or may not blog them. But yes to this one from John Carpenter.

John Trent is a chap who finds people, or otherwise investigates them for insurance purposes. Now he is on the trail of the popular author Sutter Cane, with the aid of Linda Styles. They finally track him down to Hobbs End, and encounter some very strange people and events. And then can't leave. And then question the very nature of reality itself. No biggie.

Hey, Sam Neill! Well, that immediately gets bonus points from me. And the classy presence of David Warner... and the manic appearance of John Glover. And even Charlton Heston cameos.

The effects are pretty good as one would expect from Carpenter, but the unsettinglingness is from the nature of how people are acting rather than weird grotesqueries. Although the breathing wooden panel is a bit on the "too flexible to be real" side.

And the end... well, this is supposed to be Lovecraftian, but it is more "we are just going to give into the weird" rather than go for anything sensible.

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There was a Crooked film

This has gone through a few things, but since we all love Mike Mignola...

Back in 1959, Hellboy and Agent Jo ended up in Appalachia and get randomly caught up with witches an trying to deal with the Crooked Man. It's been years since I read the comic, so no idea how faithfully this follows that story. But there is one basic thing this movie does:

This feels like a fan film make by someone who cared way more about style over substance. Like, for every scene, the prime consideration was "where can I put the camera to make this an interesting (to me) shot"... and anything else, like coherent story telling, continuity, or making sure you can actually see what is going on, is at best fifth, if considered at all.

Jack Kasey is Hellboy and... he's fine? I guess? Definitely the fan film version of him. There are some perfectly fine performances in this all round, and the effects are fine as well. Just everything is fighting against the camera so it might be great but it's hard to tell.

This movie had the lowest budget, but since Mike Mignola didn't like the other movies, he apparently is on board for this? Let's go back to him not being involved.

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The Fle

Watch this movie to see something truely miraculous... Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis having sex.

A random scientist sort of hits on a woman at a conference, and reveals to her the existence of teleportation... but fails to realise she is a journalist. What a genius! A journalist with a really scummy ex-boyfriend at that. Anyway, they have sex, and as a result the scientist knows how to teleport flesh, and does so... and merges himself at a fly (which is the premise of the movie after all). It can only end in love and harmony, really.

Well, it actually ends with some decent creature effects, but that is far too late, and after a not so decent creature suit Jeff Goldblum wears. We're here for a mutant man/fly hybrid, not Jeff Goldblum'ing all over the place! And this movie is rather disjointed in that we speedrun to get to the teleport, speed run the romance, but then spend a long time on Jeff and his disgusting hairs.

Both Jeff and Geena are... in this movie. Neither of them really seems to be that invested. John Getz does get to be scummy in his role, but doesn't do a lot here either. Aside from the momentary creature effects, this movie doesn't bother being that interesting.

Really, this is making me want to watch the original... and hey, there's a sequel to this one as well.

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aifairaidai

The family gets a nanny, but this time we skip straight to the robot!

Curtis is basically in advertising, and two AI people want to promote their not-Alexa substitute Aia. To do so, Aia is installed in his home, and it goes about integrated with him, his wife, and his three kids. Aia doesn't so much "go evil" as just start taking over everything, and when Curtis realises that it's going too far, he tries to stop it. However, technology is everywhere...

Why does noone ever think of Rule 0? This isn't a matter of Aia wanting to preserve itself, that's barely an issue, although the movie does try to pretend that it is. It's about Aia taking control of everything, and how willingly people let Aia do it, regardless of the consequences (which Aia quickly turns into what it wants anyway).

This has some true to like aspects such as "we have no idea what data it was trained on," but we are still so far from how intelligent, artifical or not, this will be. Let alone recognising that when it is trained on the internet, it will watch movies about evil AI and thus that will be what is modeled. You get out what you put in, people!

This is under 90 minutes, which is usually a warning, but Blumhouse isn't known for its long epics. John Cho and Katherine Waterson are good in this, and hey, Riki Lindhome! The effects are... ai'd. This is basically an excuse for the movie to use AI to do things, but when you need to have actual images be generated, I suspect this was more crafted than generated.

This movie is largely what you expect from the premise, but the short run time helps it not outstay its welcome.

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Subservant

An old story, now with AI!

The wife is in hospital, needing a new heart, so the husband gets in a temporary nanny to help with the family. Only problem is, the nanny has designs on the husband, and starts taking steps too far to keep him happy.

Notice that I didn't mention the nanny is a robot? Because it doesn't matter! It's the same story with evil nanny as has been told before. That it has AI now it just because it's 2024 and everything has to have AI now.

Is this the adult version of M3GAN? Like M3GAN grown up? But without the tiktok dance. I'll let others pursue that line of questioning, but this definitely feels like it could be the same universe... and certainly the same set up for sequel potential movies.

Megan Fox is the draw here, and she certainly is in this. As is Michele Morrone. And I kept thinking Madeline Zima was a slightly older Saoirse Ronan. People are fine. The effects are fine. Nothing is overdone in the special effects realm as the robots look just like us, just taking our jobs.

Nothing amazing to see here. Just more of the same, with a robot paint over.

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